The Facts of Life with Luke

Here's Luke and I on a walk through Wrights Park, downtown
Tacoma after his Neurologist appointment today

Fact #1 - Luke is a 8 year old boy, who was born healthy and stayed that way until he was found dead in our back yard pool. We believe that God brought him back to life. Because of his near drowning accident he suffered an anoxic brain injury that has left him unable to walk, talk or do anything for himself.

Fact #2 - Luke now weighs 48 pounds and is getting very tall, his knees have not bent for at least 7 years making it extremely challenging to pick up and move around.

Fact #3 - Luke has gorgeous brown eyes and very long eye lashes, he is unable to talk, but does communicate with his eyes, he will blink to let you know what he wants. He also let's you know if he is in pain by the fact that his eyes get red and he will start to cry.

Fact #4 - Luke now has severe lung damage because of the water he swallowed, along with the fact that he has aspiration problems. He now suffers from Bronchialecsis and atlectasis which causes him to have pneumonia's often, along with a need for supplemental oxygen at times.

Fact #5 - Luke is unable to eat through his mouth, therefore has a g-tube in his stomach that allows us to feed him through a feeding tube. He was also recently diagnosed with gallstones, which will mean he will have to get his gallbladder out sometime soon.

Fact #6 - Luke is the sixth child in a family of seven children, he has 3 brothers and 3 sister's, his oldest brother Daniel married Sarah a little over a year ago, they now live in Centralia, WA, his sister Natalie married Josh two plus years ago, they live within walking distance. He shares a room with his younger sister Lily, his sister Amy quite often helps take care of him and his sister Natalie comes over two morning a week to help get him up and ready for the day.

Fact #7 - Luke has had way too many appointments lately, yesterday he was casted to have new wrist orthodics done, along with a preliminary appointment to talk about casting his ankles to help retrain his feet not to go up into his legs. He has been slowly weaned off baclafen, which is a medication to help relax muscles, but has found that the more we wean the looser he gets, it's also helped get rid of most of his seizures he has been dealing with lately.

Fact #8 - Luke at one time had nurses to help take care of him, but he lost those nurses when he got rid of his trach. He now has his family to take care of him along with his Auntie Cindy and even though we qualify for our state waiver program we don't recieve that benefit because our state is broke.

Fact #9 - Luke has only been admitted into the Hospital 3 times in the past 3 years, once for a EEG, once to get his tonsils out and the last time for a very horrible pneumonia he had last February.

Fact #10 - Luke and easy don't ever go in the same sentence, though Luke and love sure do. The challenges our family experience because of Luke's needs has been overwhelming at times, especially lately. Night's have been nightmares, especially for Luke's mom who has been up all night with Luke a lot lately.

Fact #11 - It is only because of our faith in God that we continue to believe that Luke can be completely healed, not because we deny that Luke is the way he is, but we affirm that we serve a miracle working Father. We know that God makes brains and lungs each and everyday when he forms babies in the womb, therefore it's not hard for God to restore Luke's brain and legs back to perfection, that's what we know to be true and we will with faith believe that God will do that for Luke.

Fact #12 - Luke has been blessed with many people who deligently and faithfully lift him, along with our family up in their prayers. We don't know where we would be today without those prayers, thank you for your faithfulness!

Zeke turned 11 last week, we celebrated his birthday on Sunday afternoon